


Tremor

by xtricks



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, S2 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 11:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15436080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xtricks/pseuds/xtricks
Summary: For Florchis and the aosficnet2 Mid Season Fic Exchange!





	Tremor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Florchis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/gifts).



> For Florchis and the aosficnet2 Mid Season Fic Exchange!

The tea in his mug trembled, ripples rising, crossing, bouncing across the tiny surface in patterns that seemed random but were totally predictable - if you were a supercomputer.  His hands still shook sometimes, when he was tired, when he was stressed. That might never entirely go away.

Fear had caught them all up when Skye had come back, with Trip’s terrible death, with the unsolved mysteries of the obelisk and all it had brought.  Things were finally a little calmer, Jemma’s curiosity eclipsing her panic, May not so dangerous now that they’d found Skye - alive, if far from safe.  Fitz hadn’t told anyone he’d falsified her medical records. Fitz’s tea trembled again and he put the mug down with a soft clink, leaving it to grow cold.

They’d replaced all the medical equipment in the containment module with a more comfortable bed and Skye’s blankets, and anything else she wanted - including terrible cereal for dinner - in some mixture of guilt and apology.  The door wasn’t even locked. Tomorrow, they’d send Skye away, for her own safety, and theirs. 

“Skye,” Fitz murmured, in case she was asleep.  He didn’t want to wake her up if she was, but she sat bolt upright in her bed, ratty quilt from her van days falling askew.  She was wearing an old t-shirt and workout pants. “I can go? I was just seeing if you were -”   


“I’m scared,” Skye blurted.  The dimness and late night made the fear in her face stark and heart wrenching.  Fitz recognized it and couldn’t refuse it, coming to sit on the edge of her bed, pleating folds in her blanket with nervous fingers.

“What’s going to happen next?  What if - what if this isn’t everything?  What if I’m not done  _ changing _ ?”

Fitz could guess her next question.  How many times had he asked that since he’d nearly drowned?  _  What’s going to happen to me? _

He reached for her hand, carefully, because he didn’t know if she hurt, but Skye didn’t hesitate, clutching his hand and more, scrambling close to press herself against him.  She was trembling, like his tea.

“You’re different now,” Fitz said softly, repeating what he’d told her before.  “But that’s okay.

We don’t know what will happen,” he went on, bundling her closer when she shuddered.  “You’ll be different from what you might have been if - if the obelisk hadn't broken, but sometimes that happens.  We change in ways we never expected, never even wanted, really.”

Fitz would never know what  _ he  _ might have been if he hadn’t nearly died, what he’d lost to the ocean and hypoxia.  Would he be have been braver? Smarter? Would he have invented something amazing and wonderful?  Would he have become an drunken arse like his father?

“Everything you were before is still with you though,” Fitz said, because he believed it - for himself and her.  “Whatever happens, you still have who you are ... everything that makes you Skye.” He swept a hand hesitantly along her hair, a little tangled right now.  “And us, the team, even if everyone’s a little freaked right now.”

“I don’t want this,” Skye wailed into his shoulder, muffled.  “Everything was going good for once. I just want to be an agent, not some ... some who even knows what.”

“Change  isn’t bad,” Fitz pried her back enough to look at Skye’s face.  “Could be good. We just don’t know yet.”

“I hate that,” Skye’s fists clenched in the blankets, mouth going stubborn.  “Not knowing is the story of my life and I’m  _ sick  _ of it.”

Fitz’s mouth ticked up in a faint smile.  This was Skye, never content with questions and determined to find the answers.  He was sure she would this time too. “I know you, Skye, there’s no stone you’ll leave unturned, right?  This isn't different. You’ll figure it out and, whatever happens, you’ll make it work.”   


“You know it.  Lemons from lemonade - my specialty.”

“Isn’t it lemonade from lemons?”

Skye snorted.  “Not around me.”

It got quiet but in a good way.  It was strange to be here with Skye like this, but ... nice.  Right, in a way. They’d both changed so much in one instant, with one terrible thing, and they were both totally different from what they’d been before.  There was no saying if that was good, or bad, for either of them.

“Do you feel ...” Skye hesitated.  “Do you feel it all the time? The ...”

“Brain damage,” Fitz finished for her when she couldn’t.  “Yes? Sort of? I mean I feel normal, now. But sometimes I feel ... I feel like I’m still drowning.  Like my thoughts are underwater and I can’t quite get a grip on them.”

“I’m sorry.”  Skye’s arm swept around his waist.  “I feel - I feel it, my ... this stupid power or whatever.  It’s  _ on  _ all the time, like everything around me is humming.”

That sparked Fitz’s scientific curiosity and he wanted to ask  _ what _ , and  _ how _ , and what it felt like, and maybe  _ test  _ it but ... that last thought brought him up short.  Skye wasn’t a test subject, she was his friend. She didn’t need a scientist right now.

“It is,” he couldn’t resist just a  _ little  _ science.  “There’s energy bound up in everything, maybe you’re sensing that.  That would be ... amazing.”

Skye let out a long, shaky breath.  “I don’t know how I’m going to ever sleep again.”

“I’ve heard it starts with lying down.”

“Ha-ha,” Skye muttered, rolling her eyes but with a faint smile.  Fitz wasn’t exactly great at making things funny - only Jemma laughed at his science jokes - and he’d take what he could get.

He nudged Skye and she lay down but didn’t let go of his sleeve.  “Uh, maybe lie down with me? God, I sound like a five-year old. Nevermind -”

“No, it’s okay.”  Fitz settled next to her, above Skye’s blankets, of course.  Whatever tomorrow brought, she didn’t have to be alone tonight.

_ “Uhg,” _ Skye yanked at her covers.  “That’s annoying, get under.”

Fitz climbed under the covers, feeling how the space was already warm, and the way Skye’s knees knocked against his legs and her shoulder pushed at him.  He turned on his side, watching Skye’s profile in the dimness. On impulse, he brushed a fingertip along her eyebrow. Skye wrinkled her nose.

“You’re the same here,” he said, voice only a little nervous.  Fitz didn’t want Skye thinking he was trying to be creepy or anything.  He brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “The same here.” Skye’s eyes closed.

Fitz ran a strand of her hair between his fingers, they trembled only faintly now.  “The same here. The shape of your hands. The same. Stubborn, the same as always.”

Her breathing slowed and Fitz rested his head on the edge of her pillow, closing his eyes too.  “So much of you is the same, I promise, Skye. All the important things. The things you love. People who c-care about you.”

Skye’s eyes flicked open and she turned to him, inches away.  “You’re the same too, Fitz. In everything important. If I am, you are too.”

He flushed and Skye smirked.  “See, you always blushed easy.  Just the same.”

“Okay,” he breathed, ignoring the heat in his cheeks.  “Deal. If I’m the same in all the important ways. So are you.”

Skye raked her teeth along her lip uncertainly and she looked so  _ young  _ and did he look like that to everyone else too?  “Pinkie swear?” 

“Swear.”  They both knew he couldn’t make that promise, but he was willing to do it anyway.  “I promise.”

Skye’s eyes closed again, her breathing slowing.  “Okay. I’ll hold you to it.”

Fitz shut his eyes, breath falling into rhythm with hers as he followed her into sleep.  His voice was soft and fuzzy. “Same.”

Everything important, everything they cared most about - they wouldn’t lose, either of them.

 

END

(7/25/18)


End file.
